Just When You Thought It Was Safe To Go Back Into The Fridge

[zoobyshoe]

Thursday 18 March 200403:28am


VILLAGE BLAZES AGAIN
Mar 18 2004
From Jeremy Charles In Rome
_
A VILLAGE hit by a series of mystery fires was in flames again yesterday, leaving experts more baffled than ever.
The phenomenon began two months ago as fridges, washing machines and cookers all burst into flames for no reason. Locals were evacuated amid calls for an exorcism but experts put the fires down to electrostatic interference from power pylons.
But just a month later, as villagers were moving back to Canneto di Caronia, near Messina, Sicily, fires have started again.
Disconnected fuse boxes have burst into flames, car central locking systems blocked up and mobile phones have caught fire.
Yesterday mayor Pedro Spinnato said: "Yes, it's started all over again. Now we are back to where we started."
Last night experts, surveyors and engineers were probing the mystery.

Mirror.co.uk - VILLAGE BLAZES AGAIN
Address:http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnew...headline=-VILLAGE-BLAZES-AGAIN-name_page.html Changed:12:28 AM on Thursday, March 18, 2004

EDIT by Ivan: Please see also the first thread about this story.
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=14304

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Originally posted by zoobyshoe
But just a month later, as villagers were moving back to Canneto di Caronia, near Messina, Sicily, fires have started again.

This implies that the cause is a person - a prankster.

The thing that bothers me about any electromagnetic explanations is that any events of this magnitude should affect a large area. The reports seem to say that we find a cell phone here and a fuse box there, burning up from from time to time, but no widespread or simultaneous effects are mentioned. This does not seem possible to me. If I were to opt for a radical explanation, I would almost tend towards a small directed energy weapon as the source...if this is even possible on such a scale. That aside, a prankster seems to be the only reasonable explanation that I have heard...of course that coupled with a little mass hysteria and probably a few fish tales as well.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

One other thought. If the cell phones happened to be plugged in for charging at the time that they were affected, I would then consider random spikes in the voltage supply as the likely culprit. It strikes me that aside from the cell phones, most reports involve hardwired electrical items. In fact, considering Zooby's idea about geomagnetic phenomena, I can imagine that we might induce significant voltages and current - real power, as needed to start fires - in long power lines that supply the area. This does seem possible at least in principle.

 

[Evo]

My best friend lives an hour from there and the general consensus has been an arsonist.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Originally posted by Ivan Seeking
This implies that the cause is a person - a prankster.

A prankster or vandal is probably the most reasonable explanation on the face of it, but it is hard to account for how he would be arranging for these fires to start leaving no device behind, not to mention sneaking into so many peoples homes undetected.

This latest report says that "car central locking systems" have become "blocked up", which is reminiscent of the Las Vegas problems of last month, and suggests a radio frequency EM phenomenon is at work.

Rather than go all the way to say that since it only happens when people are present then a person is the cause, it might be more fruitful to explore what other things are only happening when people are present. One thing that occurred to me is that water supply and waste drainage systems would have been dormant when the people were gone. Not sure what they use for cooking, but if there is a natural gas supply system that would also have been inactive. Any manufacturing facility, if there are any, would have been shut down.

 

[Evo]

Most people in that area use bottled gas, although there has recently been a project to build gas lines through the area. Not sure about Canneto in particular, but I can find out.

In the local news they think the culprit is a mentally deranged person that is being shielded by family. Hey, it's Sicily. Know what I mean?

 

[Ivan Seeking]

For me, the religious slant is what immediately tainted the credibility of the reports. Because of this I have had serious doubts about the claimed as opposed to the actual events.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Originally posted by zoobyshoe
This latest report says that "car central locking systems" have become "blocked up", which is reminiscent of the Las Vegas problems of last month, and suggests a radio frequency EM phenomenon is at work.

Or, more likely just a failed locking system.

Like Clinton said, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Originally posted by Ivan Seeking
For me, the religious slant is what immediately tainted the credibility of the reports. Because of this I have had serious doubts about the claimed as opposed to the actual events.

At some point I'm hoping this will be cleared up with a good investigative article that has photos and expert analysis of the burned appliances showing one way or another that the fires were either electrical or that the damage was caused by proximity to something else that was burning (wad of cloth soaked in gas, for example). (I don't know how a cell phone could burst into flames. Can their batteries leak something that would react with something else in them?)

 

[zoobyshoe]

Update on the confusion:

Ghostbusters study Sicily's blazes
Fri 2 April, 2004 05:49
By Shasta Darlington
CANNETO DI CARONIA, Sicily (Reuters) - The gate at the entrance to this tiny Sicilian village has come off its hinges and swings in the wind as cats wander into homes abandoned after a series of mystery fires. This is not your average ghost town.
Canneto di Caronia has been taken over by an endless flow of scientists, engineers, police and even a few self-styled "ghostbusters" searching for clues to the recent spontaneous combustion of everything from microwave ovens to a car.
The fires started in mid-January and have claimed home appliances and fuse boxes in about half of the 20 odd houses. The blazes originally blamed on the devil himself have not hurt anyone. After a brief respite last month, the flames have flared up again almost daily even though electricity to the village was cut off long ago. "We're working in the dark. We don't have a single lead so far," said Pedro Spinnato, mayor of the trio of Caronia towns. "Every time some new scientist comes to town they arrive thinking the whole thing has been invented or that they're going to solve the mystery in two minutes. They've all been wrong."

More: Reuters | Latest Financial News / Full News Coverage
Address:http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=487377&section=news

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Police ruled out a possible prankster or pyromaniac after they saw wires burst into flames

This is sounding more interesting. It seems that the story has legs [as they say]. Wow...I don't know of anything like this that has ever been documented.

Thanks for the update Zooby.

 

[ranyart]

PROBLEM UN-SOLVED!

 

[zoobyshoe]

PROBLEM SOLVED!

One of the scientists from the Protezione Civile proposed much the same thing, that there was an excess of charged particles leaking out from the Earth at this village, but this does nothing to explain how these charges might be causing fires. I don't believe this solves the problem at all.

Ranyart, you might want to read the other thread on this subject that Ivan linked to as well.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I am closing this thread to avoid duplication. Please see the thread linked by Ranyart.

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=17794

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Well, maybe not.

Since there is so little reliable information available the feeling is that too much opportunity exists for a free-for-all. We will keep this discussion in this forum for now.

 

[username]

If it only happens when people are around could it be a prankster who has made some sort of homemade EM weapon.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I still think this might be some elaborate prank or mass hysteria. At this point I tend to doubt it, but maybe some mass state of confusion will eventually be shown as the culprit. Maybe the whole town is in on some prank for the money. I know that I really can't believe many of the reports. To me some of them sound really close to impossible. If not, the only thing that even remotely makes sense to me is that electric potential is somehow being induced in the power lines that feed the area. I don't know of any reports of seismic or volcanic activity having this effect but this is the only thing that I can even imagine at this point. I don't know it this is even possible.

I know that the earthquake lights crowd uses this sort of argument to explain strange lights that are often interpreted UFO’s - that large releases of EM energy can produce lights in the sky in seismically active areas.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Here's a story that provides some current socio-political info about Sicily, that may or may not be relevant:



"Mafiosi are losing more than just their freedom.
*
Italy's distribution of former mafia-controlled land and assets to Sicilian farmers has not just created jobs and revived the region, but also helped clean up Sicily's notorious gangster image.
*
For most foreigners and even mainland Italians, Sicily is synonymous with the mafia. But in recent years the island has been trying to shake off the image that everything is run by organized crime.
*
Sicilian authorities are keen to show that large areas of the island are run by honest cooperatives of young farmers and entrepreneurs. These cooperatives have been allocated millions of dollars worth of land and property that used to be formerly controlled by the mafia.
*
Italy first adopted laws on the seizure of financial resources and property from imprisoned mafia bosses over two decades ago. But it wasn't until 1996 that new legislation allowed these confiscated assets to be used "for the good of society".
*
Birthplace of feared mafia bosses
*
Nicolo Nicolosi, the mayor of Corleone, 60 kms south of Palermo where land has been confiscated, said the mafia had acquired it illegally. "These properties were the fruit of money laundering, violence and drug trafficking. The mafia had taken over the best lands, but now these are being given back to the people."**
*
Corleone, a farming community is Sicily's most famous mafia town, largely thanks to a Godfather movie trilogy directed by Francis Ford Coppola. But, Nicolosi admitted that *Corleone's association with the mafia is not just fiction.
*
"There is no doubt that the most important mafia bosses in the past ten or twenty years were born here. Corleone was the birthplace of* the 'boss of bosses', Toto Riina, arrested in 1993, and of Bernardo Provenzano, who has been at large for 40 years and is believed to rule the mafia today."
*
Large land holdings were confiscated from Riina, now serving numerous life sentences. The powerful mafia boss ordered the 1992 killings of two crusading anti-mafia judges, causing outrage in Italy and abroad. In Corleone, Riina was feared and respected by
many.
*
Fear of retaliatory mafia action
*
Nicolosi said that when Riina's seized properties were handed over to a cooperative of farmers, locals were concerned there would be deadly repercussions for those entering what was considered to be "sacred territory".
*
"Generally people were convinced that assets seized by the mafia should not be touched. Just like relatives of turncoats were killed by the mafia, people feared that those who did would pay for violating mafia territory."
*
This was certainly the case in the beginning. The 'Placido Rizzotto' cooperative was assigned 200 hectares of land, partly owned by Mafia boss Riina. The members grow wheat which is then turned into what has been labeled "anti-mafia pasta".
*
Francesca Massimino, one of the members said the cooperative has had problems. "The first year we could find no one to provide the machine to harvest the wheat. The police had to intervene to find a harvester," he said.
Massimino believes the company that had agreed to provide the machine had been threatened.
*
Other cooperatives have also faced trouble including discovering that their vines had been cut or experiencing sudden fires. In one case, two Dobermans disappeared from a farm only to be found days later dead in trash cans.
*
Giuseppe Randazzo, owner of the Tempio del Monte Jato cooperative, which farms the land that once belonged to another infamous mafia boss Romualdo Agrigento, too said the going hadn't been easy. "The mafia had carried out acts of vandalism. When we came here in 1998 we found it totally abandoned, destroyed, with walls torn down, vines cut down, pipelines severed, total destruction,"

More:Godfather Country Gets a Makeover | Europe | Deutsche Welle | 16.04.2004
Address:http://www.dw-world.de/english/0,3367,1433_A_1171733_1_A,00.html Changed:10:33 AM on Friday, April 16, 2004

 

[zoobyshoe]

This strange electrostatic effect I just read about is one I had never heard of before. The accident whereby it was discovered (described at the end) demonstrates that if you just recombine commonly encountered things in the right way the result can be completely unexpected.

"If mercury is shaken up in a dry glass tube in the dark, a glow is seen, proving the production of small charges of electricity. In fact, enough electricity is produced to cause the tube to attract light bodies. This demonstrates that the friction of liquid bodies against solids can produce electricity.
This method was not used, however, until, in 1840, an accident showed an easy method of producing large quantities of electricity by driving a jet of steam against a solid body. This is the principle of Armstrong's machine shown in Fig. 83. An insulated boiler is filled with distilled water, which produces high pressure steam that escapes through a row of jets after being partly condensed by passing through pipes surrounded by cold water. The drops of water produced by the condensation strike against a plate of boxwood round which the steam has to pass before it escapes from the jets made of the same wood, as shown in Fig. 9. Electricity is developed in proportion to the increase of the pressure of the steam; the jets become charged positively and the steam negatively. To collect the latter charge an insulated conductor is used, which is furnished with a series of points held opposite the jets. These hydro-electric machines are very powerful but were so difficult to use that they were never adopted in place of friction machines. There was one at the Polytechnic in London with fortysix jets, and which gave sparks two feet long, and one at the Sorbonne, in Paris, has eighty jets, and produced* sparks several inches in length."



"3The discovery of the principles upon which this machine is constructed were made by chance. "A mechanic was busy repairing a steam?engine near Newcastle, having one hand in a jet of steam which was escaping from a leak, with the other hand on the lever of the safety valve ; he drew a brilliant spark and received a violent shock. Armstrong studied the. conditions of the phenomenon," &e. (Mascart's Traité d'Electricite statique)."
Static History
Address:http://www.sparkmuseum.com/FRICTION_HIST.HTM Changed:3:21 PM on Wednesday, November 13, 2002

No news lately from Canneto di Caronia, but I still think these fires were the result of some kind of freak effect, the proper setup for which may only exist there.

 

[jimmy p]

I would have just said voltage spikes like above, but mobile phones and door locks?? How "electrically powered" is a door lock?

 

[zoobyshoe]

I would have just said voltage spikes like above, but mobile phones and door locks?? How "electrically powered" is a door lock?

I'm not presenting this effect as the explanation. I'm presenting it as an example of an effect most people, even physicists, have never heard of. The point of doing that is to open people's minds to the possibility that just such a freak effect is what started these fires. Not this freak effect, but some equally freak effect, that wouldn't occur to people to check or test for.

The door locks they refer to are car door locks. These are electronically controlled with remotes.

 

[jimmy p]

My mistake I didnt realize there was a second page...

 

[zoobyshoe]

Here's a summary/update that came out today. It has a lot of details that haven't been in other stories. *



"CANNETO DI CARONIA, Sicily There are many ways for evil to arrive but perhaps only one way to get rid of it: Exorcism.
That about sums up the collective psyche of this stone-filled village perched above the sea after a series of puzzling electrical shorts, unexplained fires and smoky outbursts that struck nine houses, displacing 17 families.
First to explode was Nino Pezzino's television, two days before Christmas.
Fuse boxes then blew in houses all along the Via Mare. Air conditioners erupted even when unplugged. Fires started spontaneously. Kitchen appliances went up in smoke. A roomful of wedding gifts was crisped. Computers jammed. Cell phones rang when no one was calling and electronic door locks in empty cars went demonically up and down.
Before long, the mainly Roman Catholic populace professed to see the hand of the Devil at work, turning their postcard-perfect paradise into a place possessed of evil, embers and ash. As Pezzino put it, "Whoever believes in the good believes in the bad."
He paused, wiped his brow and added: "I'm Catholic. I believe in the Devil. I don't know why the Devil is here."
On Feb. 9, after a particularly harrowing fire, 39 of the hamlet's 150 people evacuated their homes. Earlier this month, fingers crossed, they returned.
The intervening period can be summed up like this: Enel, the country's electrical company, cut power to the village. Some scientists came. They studied things. They made declarations about the release of electromagnetic waves. The town replaced its wires and grounded them. Now, the odd phenomena seem to have stopped, but the scientists are at a loss to explain why. "It is not certain that the fires are finished forever," said Tullio Martella, the head of Sicily's Civil Protection Agency. "They were episodic to begin with."
As a practical matter, the scientists took notes, mapped the occurrences, used Geiger counters and interviewed witnesses. But in the end officials from several agencies, including the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology and the National Research Center, were left with only hypotheses.
One was that high pressure from under the crust of this volcanic spit of land on Sicily's northern coast caused underground shifts that released electrical energy that found its way to the village. The supercharged ions, once in contact with electronic devices, may have caused sparks to fly, the scientists say, especially since the hamlet is near transmission lines and railroad tracks. But the fires could just as easily have been caused by some problem in the atmosphere, Martella said.
"The cause of the fires seems to have been static electric charges," Martella said. "What we don't understand is why there were these static electric charges."
Even less definitive was Gianfranco Allegra, of the Italian Center for Electrotechnical Experimentation, in Milan. "No one knows what the cause of these fires are," he said. "They are inexplicable." In the absence of clear science, villagers say there is no question it is the Devil's work. The causes, they say, have more to do with superstitions in a land known on maps as Demon's Valley, a veritable cradle of vampire lore.
"Maybe the problem we're dealing with is technology,'' Pezzino said as he and other villagers started trickling back to their homes. "But it's not earth-bound technology."
Then he added: "If it happens again, I'm bringing in the exorcist." Standing around him, the town's mayor, Pedro Spinnato, 38, and an older man, Pippo Cicero, an olive farmer, burst out laughing."

More:

IHT: Italian village as Devil's playground
Address:http://www.iht.com/articles/526314.htm Changed:5:16 PM on Wednesday, June 23, 2004

 

[zoobyshoe]

This series of letters in the Register suggests that Ivan's initial explanation of gross exaggeration of petty vandalism is correct. As usual, though, we're at the mercy of second hand reports of what happened. The burning with a cigarette lighter wouldn't account for reports of things bursting into flame in front of people.

"The Register » Odds and Sods » Letters »
Cyber appliances, deadly mobiles and free beer
By Lucy Sherriff
Published Wednesday 30th June 2004 11:17Â*GMT
Letters: We fear that some of you, our beloved readers, have misunderstood one or two of our stories this week. In particular, we refer to the news that Satan had been implicated in the latest cyber appliance attacks.
At this point, we feel obliged to remind readers that it is supposed to be funny. It is slightly worrying that anyone thought we were serious. It was filed in Bootnotes, people. Come on!
We don't actually think Satan had anything to do with it, in fact the idea is laughable. We were having beers with him at the time. It is all part of his latest demonic PR campaign to raise his profile in these increasingly godless times. Apparently he doesn't feel like he's getting nearly enough credit for "bad things that happen" any more.
Clearer? Good.
It is a hoax.
From: Randi.org
we have talked with a Telecom technician who was called right after the first damage occurred. His opinion was that burns on various electrical cables were generated from an outside source, maybe a small cigarette lighter.
-Michael Heyman
Hi Lester,
Thanks for today's update on the fearful residents of Canneto di Caronia. I wonder if anyone has alerted you to the article in the current issue of "Skeptical Inquirer" on this subject. (Skeptical Inquirer, "The Magazine of Science and Reason," vol 28 no 3, May/June 2004, "Satan in a Sicilian Fridge," p. 26; www.csicop.org[/url]). The Canneto di Caronia story was investigated by Massimo Polidoro ([url]www.massimopolidoro.com[/URL]), a debunker of paranormal claims. He reported the following among his findings:
The area of activity was not an entire town, but a few houses on a private road whose inhabitants are all related.
The only observable result of the incident was some small fires that appeared to have their source in some charred electrical wires. (No appliance misbehaviors were found.) All the wires were easily reachable; none were inside walls or beyond arm's length. The wires had been charred from the outside, not from overheating of the copper within. A telephone repairman noticed that he could provide exact duplicates by heating wires with a cigarette lighter.
When the electric utility cut off power, reports of fires continued; when the inhabitants were evacuated, the fires stopped.
An exorcist who volunteered to visit the town "was openly invited to stay home" by townspeople "fed up" with media mania.
Could it be that the story was exaggerated? Well, Polidoro did observe one reporter who insisted that his interviewee "scream and curse on camera in order to make her interview 'more effective.'" Possibly the Danish crew who were there "to film the devil" didn't help.
As your report stated, bodies as diverse as the National Institute of Geophysics and Vulcanology failed to offer a plausible reason for the fires. Indeed, the volcano people did not find a single volcano; however, the president of the organization was quoted as saying, "If you think about it, nothing extraordinary has happened since the area has been evacuated."
Hope you find this interesting. All the best,
Ross Carter

Fortunately, not everyone thought we meant every word.

Sir, having read your article, I should inform you that there is, at least, a fictional precedent for this. Stephen King wrote a short story "The Mangler" concerning an industrial laundry pressing and folding machine that got splattered with virgin's blood in a minor industrial accident and became demonically possessed. A film was adapted from it (IMDB link [url]http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113762/[/url] ).
For an even earlier and non-demonic example, there is M R James' short story, "The Malice of Inanimate Objects."
Lukin Brewer, London

Sounds like some one tried one of Tesla's experiments
from [PLAIN]http://www.neuronet.pitt.edu/~bogdan/tesla/
In Colorado Springs, Colo., where he stayed from May 1899 until early 1900, Tesla made what he regarded as his most important discovery-- terrestrial stationary waves. By this discovery he proved that the Earth could be used as a conductor and would be as responsive as a tuning fork to electrical vibrations of a certain frequency. He also lighted 200 lamps without wires from a distance of 25 miles (40 kilometres) and created man-made lightning, producing flashes measuring 135 feet (41 metres). At one time he was certain he had received signals from another planet in his Colorado laboratory, a claim that was met with derision in some scientific journals.
Richard Andrews"

Cyber appliances, deadly mobiles and free beer | The Register
Address:http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/06/30/letters_3006/

 

[Ivan Seeking]

On a related note

Driving out the demons

They brandish crosses, sprinkle holy water and have grown in number from 20 to 300 in ten years. Orlando Radice charts the renaissance of Italy’s exorcists

His name is theatrical, he has a huge crucifix and he has said that Harry Potter is an incarnation of the Antichrist. Welcome to the world of Gabriele Amorth, the Vatican’s top exorcist and to millions of Catholics a big gun in the battle with the dark side: he is the author of An Exorcist Tells His Story (translated into 14 languages), the subject of numerous national television interviews and a powerful voice in a world where sin is in and ‘miracles’ get television coverage.

“I am very busy,” he tells me on the phone. “I have six exorcisms to do this afternoon. I am afraid to report that occultism, Satanism and black magic are becoming very popular here,” he says, and adds enigmatically, “the forces are on the march.” [continued]

http://www.newhumanist.org.uk/volume119issue4_more.php?id=851_0_31_0_C

 

[Moonbear]

Have meteorological events been ruled out? The sort of damage described by most of the posts here sounds a lot like what you'd expect if lightning struck nearby...not a direct hit, but the electric surge from being in close proximity to the strike. When my parents' house was struck by lightning, even the electrical system in the car in the garage, which was not directly hit, was completely shorted out. I don't know if there is any atmospheric phenomenon that could account for such a discharge even when no visible lightning is present, but the right climate might increase the amount of static built up. And if appliances were old and/or poorly grounded already, it seems reasonable they'd be susceptible to that static. I would also suspect that some of the reports have been exaggerated or embellished by people already superstitious about the origins of the problems.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Have meteorological events been ruled out? The sort of damage described by most of the posts here sounds a lot like what you'd expect if lightning struck nearby...not a direct hit, but the electric surge from being in close proximity to the strike. When my parents' house was struck by lightning, even the electrical system in the car in the garage, which was not directly hit, was completely shorted out. I don't know if there is any atmospheric phenomenon that could account for such a discharge even when no visible lightning is present, but the right climate might increase the amount of static built up.

No one has suggested anything quite on the lines of lighning. To the best of my knowledge there aren't any meteorological phenomena that have the same energy as lightning which don't also create an unmistakable flash of light.

I think you're right, though, to bring up the possibility of a weather related contribution. An anomalous configuration of weather can certainly hover over a specific area for a period of time, and the relationship between weather and static buildup is obvious.

The scientists who stationed themselves there would surely have detected this weather condition, except that the fires had stopped by the time Science arrived on the scene, and if any such weather conditions did contribute they would have passed by this time.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Did anyone see the show on The Discovery Channel? They showed a wire from an affected appliance. It was clear that the wire was burned but not from too much current. The scientist interviewed concluded that the fire was started by an external source such as a match. However, one thing that caught my eye was that the wire damage was indicative of excessively high voltage. I wonder if he checked closely for pit marks caused by high voltage breaking through the insulation. And the number of fires, along with the location and circumstances - the motor inside of a stove vent hood burst into flames, for example - to me seem to rule out pranks. One could see that the locals were quite worked up about this. They had literally been run out of their homes...

Dunno. I don't see how any explanation works well here...and I would like to see that wire. Perhaps he is correct - it was ignited with a match of other flame source - but that in itself is a very unsatifying explanation when compared to the reports.

 

[zoobyshoe]

I didn't happen to see this. Was the whole show about Canneto di Caronia?

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I believe so but I may not have caught the entire show.

 

[SGT]

At some point I'm hoping this will be cleared up with a good investigative article that has photos and expert analysis of the burned appliances showing one way or another that the fires were either electrical or that the damage was caused by proximity to something else that was burning (wad of cloth soaked in gas, for example). (I don't know how a cell phone could burst into flames. Can their batteries leak something that would react with something else in them?)

This news were published in Brazilian newspaper http://www.estadao.com.br/tecnologia/telecom/noticias/2006/mar/23/254.htm. It is a serious publication, so I suppose they have checked it.

SÃO PAULO - Depois da estudante Carina Zancheta, de 14 anos, que teve queimaduras de segundo grau na perna. Quando seu celular Motorola C200 explodiu, agora foi a vez da jornalista carioca Jacqueline Leão sofrer com um aparelho da mesma marca.

Ela relatou que no último sábado (18) seu aparelho explodiu enquanto estava sendo recarregado. Ela afirmou que deixou seu celular, também um Motorola C200, recarregando no quarto quando ouviu o barulho de uma explosão e constatou que a bateria do aparelho havia sido arremessada longe, atingindo uma bolsa de náilon, que foi danificada com o calor da peça.

Em um comunicado, a Motorola disse que só irá se pronunciar após a divulgação de laudos técnicos sobre os acidentes.

Translating:
SÃO PAULO - After the 14 years old student Carina Zancheta, who had second degree burnings in her leg when her Motorola C200 cell phone exploded, now was the turn of the Carioca journalist Jacqueline Leão to suffer with a device of the same brand.
She reported that last Saturday (18) her device exploded during recharge. She says that she left her cell phne, also a Motorola C200, recharging in her room when she heard the sound of the explosion e verified that the battery was thrown at a distance, hitting a nylon purse, that was damaged by the heat.
Motorola said that will restrain any comments until a technical report is available.

Edited to inform: I was not able to link correctly to the site. If someone is interested, please cut and paste the address in your browser.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Yeah, I can't get to the site you're quoting. Something seems to be wrong with the address.

Anyway, what's reported seems like a malfunction of a particular model of a particular brand, which means it shouldn't be too difficult for them to test others and determine the problem. It says the second was recharging when it exploded. I wonder if the first was as well.

 

[SGT]

Yeah, I can't get to the site you're quoting. Something seems to be wrong with the address.

Anyway, what's reported seems like a malfunction of a particular model of a particular brand, which means it shouldn't be too difficult for them to test others and determine the problem. It says the second was recharging when it exploded. I wonder if the first was as well.

The first one was in the pocket of the girl's jeans. She was burned by the explosion.

 

[zoobyshoe]

The first one was in the pocket of the girl's jeans. She was burned by the explosion.

The only time I've had a battery explode on me was when it was backward in a bank of six. This was a AA alkaline. It worked for a few moments, though the voltage was obviously low (running a little motor), then it burst. No flame or anything: the casing just split suddenly. I suppose if the batteries are several cells in series one could have been put in backward during manufacture. It could work for a while at reduced voltage, then fail.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Cell phone batteries have had a problem - sometimes spontaneously bursting into flames. There have been several posts to this effect taken from news articles. I imagine that the batteries are internally shorting out which eventually produces enough heat to ignite the plastic.